I was surprised by how easily skating came back to me, how quickly my body remembered how to balance on the skates. I glided around the rink a couple of times, passing a slow-moving Marco.

I wanted to show him the spin I used to be able to do, but people kept getting in my way.

“It’s fine,” I promised him, smiling.

I was having a ball.

Seeing a gap in the stream of skaters I pushed back on the skates in order to give myself space to move forward into the spin. To my shock, however, I felt myself hit something solid.

An “oof” sounded and then the solid weight collapsed behind me, taking my balance with it. I stumbled around, letting out a yelp, as I swung my arms to balance myself. When I turned, righted, my eyes bugged out in horror.

Unfortunately, the something solid I’d hit was a girl who’d then crashed into a boy, who’d crashed into a couple, who’d crashed into another young woman.

As chaos reigned and limbs splayed I could only watch in mortification at the ice rink devastation I’d created as other skaters skidded to a stop to watch them all hit the ice like dominoes.

Groans and curse words lit the air as the crashers all sat up. My eyes jumped from one to the next to make sure there were no major injuries.

A warm hand wrapped around mine and I found myself jerked back against Marco. “They’re fine,” he said through clenched teeth and yanked on my arm. “Let’s get you out of here. Now.”

Realizing that was probably a good idea, considering the murderous looks aimed my way, I shot an apologetic glance at the casualties, who were regaining their footing quickly, and I ungracefully slipped and skidded as I hurried after Marco off the rink.

With quick efficiency Marco got our skates off, our shoes back on, grabbed my hand, and started hauling me back up toward Princes Street.

We were only halfway up the hill when he suddenly let go of my hand and looked down at me, appearing ready to explode. And then he did.

His laughter was loud and infectious, and he couldn’t seem to catch his breath.

My surprise soon melted into shared hilarity and I collapsed against his side, giggling like a madwoman.

“Oh, man.” Marco finally calmed, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. “I didn’t realize you were such a klutz, babe.”

“I’m not! I just… don’t have the best spatial awareness. Obviously.”

His body shook with laughter again. “That’s the fucking understatement of the year. Jesus, that was like a skit. You couldn’t have rehearsed it better.”

“Should I prepare myself for a constant stream of teasing for the next few hours?”

“More like years of it. Any time we see a pair of ice skates…”

I harrumphed. “No one got hurt.”

He snorted and I could tell he was trying not to lose it again.

I punched him playfully. “You keep up the teasing, you’re not getting your Christmas present.” I’d bought him a Blu-ray player since he’d said he didn’t have one and I knew how much he loved movies.

Marco looked down at me, pulling me in closer to his side. “You’ll still get yours.”

My eyes lit up. “You got me a present?”

“Of course.”

“I like presents.”

His gaze turned deeply affectionate. “Duly noted.”

Warmth pulsed through me at the expression on his face. I held on tighter to him. “I kind of like you. You know that, right?”

His answer was to stop us in the middle of the crowds again and kiss me like there was no one else around.

After a lengthy, heated embrace, I pulled back to grin up at him. “You’re really cool.”

He grinned back. “Good thing one of us is.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You have two hours to get the skating incident out of your system, and then no more.”

“I object. Two hours isn’t long enough.”

“It’s plenty long enough.”

“The length of teasing should be in proportion to the magnitude of the incident. Babe, you just took out five people simultaneously on an ice rink. I’d say that’s at least the first five years of our lives together. One year per person.”

I wanted to argue with the math, but I knew if our roles were reversed I’d be taking the absolute piss out of him for it for years to come. “Fine,” I grumbled. “Five years.”

He hugged me to his side and started leading me up the hill again. “You do realize you just committed yourself to me for at least five years.”

That sneaky little… I gave him a look of reluctant admiration. “Nicely played, D’Alessandro. Nicely played.”

For the last few weeks, I’d taken to waking just before Marco’s alarm was set to go off. Mostly, I would just cuddle in closer to him and close my eyes again.

However, that morning I woke up to discover that we were tangled in each other as we lay on our sides, my outer thigh resting over his, my lower body pressed into him.

Marco might be asleep, but his body was aware of the close proximity of its manly bits to my womanly bits. With his hard-on pushing against my belly, I felt a delicious tingle between my legs that woke me up entirely.

Trailing my hands up his naked back, I delighted in the feel of him. I lowered my head and started kissing my way down his chest.

Suddenly his arms tightened around me and he pushed us until I was flat on my back and he was braced over me.

He looked down at me through sleepy eyes. “First your snoring keeps me awake and now you’re trying to make me late?” His voice was even more gravelly than usual. So unbelievably sexy I wanted to touch myself as I listened to him talk.

I squirmed under him until I had my legs wrapped lightly around his hips. “I’m trying to make up for the snoring with sex, but if you’re not interested…,” I teased, moving to drop my legs.

“That’s not a gun pressing against you, babe.”

I grinned cheekily and shook my head. “No, that’s your cock.”

Marco grinned back. “You just like saying that word, don’t you?”

I nodded as he lowered his head to press kisses to my neck. “Cock.” His kisses turned to love bites and I giggled. “Cock, cock, cock.”

Growling, Marco rolled us so he was on his back and I was astride him. He looked up at me, his beautiful blue-green eyes as awake as his hard-on now. His hands flexed on my hips as the sexual heat in his eyes ignited. “Ride my cock, Hannah,” he ordered gruffly.

I purred, lifting myself over him until I felt the tip of him at my entrance. I grew wet at just the promise of him. “Just because you asked so nicely…”

I was in a great mood. My day had started with earth-shattering sex and now it was ending with one of my favorite lesson plans. I had my fourth-year class and we were discussing villains. In order to illustrate the use of character development and the need for layers in creating a good villain in literature, I was using clips from the film The Dark Knight Rises.

Having the visual and something the kids enjoyed as the source actually really helped in getting them to understand the use of history, circumstance, and motivation in creating a villain. The students were really into it. It was probably the most animated I’d ever seen them, and I was in a great mood, enjoying it right along with them.

“Whit’s up wi’ you?” Jack Ryan, the thorn in my side, sneered and effectively ruined the positive atmosphere. “Someone finally givin’ it tae you?”

My blood boiled and while I counted to ten in order to answer the little shit calmly, Jarrod let his eraser fly. It was some throw.

It hit Jack’s cheek. Hard.

“Whit the fuck!” He slapped a hand to his cheek and glared in Jarrod’s direction. He moved as if he was going to get up, but I was already marching over to him with determination.

“Sit down,” I demanded with a chilling calm. The whole class tensed at the anger in my voice.

Surprised by my tone, Jack lowered himself back into his seat.

Reaching his table, I put my palms on it and leaned down so he had nowhere to look but at my face.

My voice quiet and taut, I laid it out for him. “If you ever speak to me like that again, you are out of here. Do you understand me?”

He shrugged.

I narrowed my eyes. “Let me make myself perfectly clear, then. I am not impressed by you. I am certainly not intimidated by you, and, frankly, I am sick of your continuous interruptions in my class. One more inappropriate word from you and you’re gone, and I’ll keep putting you out of this class every time you do it. Because do you know what? It’s no skin off my nose if you don’t pass this class. I’d rather everyone else gets the attention they need from me, because they deserve it. If you want to walk out into the real world without even a basic education and then spend your life struggling to make ends meet, then go ahead – say something that will really, really annoy me.”

Jack’s answer was to stare at me sullenly.

But he didn’t open his mouth. I took that as progress.

Shooting him one last warning look, I bent down and picked up Jarrod’s eraser. I walked over to his table. “I think you dropped this.”

Smirking, he reached up to take it back, but I held it out of his reach for a moment.

“I’m asking you not to drop it again.”

Jarrod’s expression changed, the smirk disappearing, a serious note in his eyes. He nodded carefully and I handed the eraser back to him.

We finished up the class but Jack had officially ruined the mood. I gave him another stern look as he left my classroom at the sound of the bell. The kids were filtering out when Jarrod came over to my desk, waiting for his classmates to leave.